3 ‘Crimes of Grindelwald’ Critics to Read

HogwartsProfessor is not a Harry Potter news aggregator website. We try to offer commentary on our favorite books and films that is original, ground-breaking, challenging, edifying, and fun rather than repeat what others have said or report fan news not related to textual artistry and meaning. Except, of course, for Dancing with the Stars videos and updates.

Having said that, I don’t live with my head in the sand. I receive daily bulletins from SnitchSeeker.com with fandom news that rarely has anything more substantive than Warner Brothers press releases and I check out MuggleNet.com once or twice a week for a look at how the monster-sized fan sites live (and think). I also get email owls from around the world day and night which alert me to news-I-can-use, most often subjects that HogPro readers want me to discuss.

Crimes of Grindelwald, as you would imagine has created a flood of this kind of owls, all with wonderfully distracting commentary from Potter-philes about the meaning of the latest Fantastic Beasts franchise film. I say “distracting” because I’m trying to chart and explore the artistry of the screenplay now myself, all while trying not to be too rude to my family home for the holidays and keep a full-time Muggle job which is retail. Did I mention PhD requirements and assignments?

To turn this distraction into a weblog post for Thanksgiving, silk from a sow’s ear you might say, I have chosen three Crimes of Grindelwald posts from sages online that I think are both worth your time as serious readers and indicative of the kind of work being done elsewhere in fandom. No, none of these sites do anything like what we offer at HogwartsProfessor.com; let me know, though, if you’ve found our doppelganger or sister site out there in nether-nether land and what you enjoyed or didn’t about these three samples.

Bagman touched his throat with his wand and whispered, ‘Sonorus’ before saying in words that echoed around the stadium, “Ladies and gentlemen, witches and wizards, I give you Sims…, Sipal…, aaaannd Kim!”

Andrew Sims is a Potter Pundit from way back, an entrepeneurial wunderkind of Generation Hex. He podcasts at MuggleNet.com and is the founder and editor of Hypable.com, for which he writes most of the pieces that are Potter related and not just click bait. Andrew has already broken down the Original Screenplay text for Crimes of Grindelwald for ‘reveals’ not in the film, which contradict the film, or which explain things not obvious in the film. It’s not complete by any means, but it is way, way, way ahead of the field — and has great pictures to boot. Check out Andrew’s post on the Crimes of Grindelwald screenplay and its revelations.

S. P. Sipal is the ‘way out there’ author and fan theorist who posts YouTube videos rather than written blog posts (which makes referring to anything she says more than a little difficult, not to mention the impossibility of searching her archived videos’ content…). Here is an example of her work the link to which I was sent with an enthusiastic recommendation by a friend of this site; I’m told she has since moved on to an alchemical theory for Aurelius’ origin so don’t take the ideas here as seriously as you might be tempted to. In this video, Susan rejects the possibility that Ariana was an Obscurial (there was too much love in the DDore home, forget about the rape, loss of father, death of mother, survivor’s guilt, etc.) and in a fantastic burst of speculation says that it was Gellert Grindelwald who was the Obscurial — who lost his Obscurus (and power source!) when he finds a brother in Albus. I confess to being lost in the Bizarro Land she describes by post’s end, but there is a lot of fun stuff in here if you have high waders on. Let me know if her alchemical theorizing is any better should you have another half-hour to spend while recovering from turkey-and-cranberry overload!

Lorrie Kim is the author of Snape: A Definitive Reading and a friend from my years living just north of Philadelphia (and Potterdelphian gatherings!). I really missed catching up with her news at this year’s Chestnut Hill conference. Lorrie is thoughtful, insightful, and more than willing to duel in friendly fashion about conflicting theories in Rowling’s writing, Snape and beyond. She thinks S. P. Sipal beyond brilliant, but Lorrie’s take in this post at her website on the “Beyond Brothers” line from Crimes of Grindelwald is much more sober and compelling than the Gellert-Obscurial idea, not to mention being easier to access and cite as a written piece.

Let me know what you think of these offerings and if you have any fandom favorites out there you’d care to share! The comment boxes are open and waiting for your T-Day reflections.